


Sleep, Dream, You, Repeat

by starrkeys



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Heartbreak, M/M, Moving On, Sad Michael, a happy fic this is not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrkeys/pseuds/starrkeys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It used to be Luke-and-Michael but now Luke is gone and Michael is sad. Nothing is really okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Michael is Sad

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Numbers by the Cab.

the days were long. always ridiculously long, practically endless. michael could barely get through some of them. the ones where he curled up on the couch with a blanket up to his chin. the ones he spent thrashing at a guitar, never quite being able to get the tune just right. the ones where he couldn’t see the future for thinking of the past.

he had good days, of course. but those seemed to last forever too and the longer he was awake, the worse the day got.

he took to sleeping a lot. listening to music a lot. playing a lot of mindless video games. getting drunk a lot. smoking a lot. doing something productive hardly ever.

this was what he wanted, back in the day. when he spent so many days cuddled into luke’s side, discussing the future. doing nothing but existing seemed favourable during those times. now it was practically unbearable. not that michael wanted to do anything else with his time. get a job, actually create music, talk to real life people. it all seemed so stupid.

now that luke was gone, everything was different.

there was a luke shaped hole on the other side of the bed, in the arm chair in front of the tv, in the yellow chair in the kitchen. the music room was half empty, missing all of luke’s things. the closet only had half a rack of clothes. (some of it was even technically luke’s. they’d shared so much of their wardrobe that, when michael wanted to be melancholy, he figured luke just grabbed t-shirts indiscriminately when he left.)

on the rare occasions when michael got together with calum, he’d hear stories. stories about luke getting his shit together and writing music and even selling a couple of songs to some b-list singers. It wasn’t fair. mike’s life was in stasis and all the members of his former band were moving on with their lives, doing things.

michael didn’t know what to do, was the problem. he’d only ever had joint plans with luke. they would write songs together, sell them together, sing them together. they would eventually move into a house in the country somewhere. they would travel the world. he didn’t have any plans to call his own. every time he attempted to do one of the things that they’d thought of together, he just, quite simply, couldn’t.

it’s not like he wanted to be this pathetic lump of a human being. but without luke beside him, all the melodies sounded stupid and corny and the world didn’t seem that enticing and their flat in the city seemed perfectly alright to him.

which, he supposes, was the point. it was what luke said, before he’d grabbed his stuff and left. we need to have our own lives. it’s unhealthy. i have plans of my own.

michael couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at the blond. he loved him too much for that. even after all that time. he knew that luke wasn’t coming back. he knew it but it still didn’t seem to sink in. he still couldn’t move on.

it all just needed to stop sometimes. but the days just kept dragging on and on and on, into one big blur of nothing. he couldn’t continue like that. obviously. but what could he do? kill himself? yeah right, like he had the guts.

his only option was to wallow. who was he without Luke? nobody. he wasn’t a part of the dream team. he was just a sad man moving ungracefully forward toward his thirties with absolutely nothing to show for it.

sometimes, when he saw himself in the mirror, he felt ashamed. ashamed of the way his roots were fully grown in and he hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. ashamed of the ashen tone of his skin, from never going outside. ashamed of the tired look in his eyes, as if life had dealt him a bad hand, even though all that had happened was heartbreak. it was pathetic.

on particularly bad days, michael’d stalk the internet for mentions of luke. every once and a while, something would pop up. it was a self-destructive pastime but so were all his other pastimes, so what did it matter?

it came as a shock when luke showed up at the door. michael hadn’t showered in two- no three days and his hair was a greasy mess and he hadn’t put on anything but sweatpants in a shamefully long time.

for a second, he even thought he was dreaming. it simply didn’t make any sense.

luke was sucking on his lip piercing, like he did when he was nervous. michael just stared. there was nothing that luke could say to make it all okay. absolutely nothing. not one thing. it wasn’t okay. it would never be okay again. what could he possibly even want?

finally, luke opened his mouth to speak. “hi.”


	2. In Which Michael Begins Moving On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no intention of continuing this but then today I was mad inspired. I’ll keep it open to continue further but it’s nowhere near a main focus of mine. I hope you enjoy. xxx

“what?” michael asked. he said it angrily. he felt angry.

luke winced at the harshness. he couldn’t seem to meet michael’s eyes. michael wanted him to look at him. he wanted him to look at him, take in just how awful michael looked. he wanted him to see just what he’d done to him. maybe then, he would feel just a fraction of what michael felt. maybe then he would understand.

maybe if he just fucking looked he’d understand how wrong it was for him to be standing on mike’s doorstep, looking totally fine, saying something so completely mundane and normal as hi.

“what the fuck do you want, luke?”

luke just stood there, nibbling on his lip piercing, staring steadfastly at the corner of the doorway. it was infuriating.

all michael had thought that he wanted was for luke to come back, to explain that there was a mistake or that he was wrong or something. but now he was here and all michael wanted to do was punch him or slam the door in his face or scream at him. now luke was here and all he wanted was for him to not be here.

“i don’t know….” luke said, scratching at the back of his neck. it made his shirt ride up and mike made sure not to look anywhere but at the blond’s face.

“you don’t know?” he said, injecting as much venom as he could into his voice. “how can you not know? you’re the one that showed up after months. you can’t just show up and say ‘hi.’”

“i know! i know. i should’ve called first. or something. i just thought i’d chicken out if i didn’t just do it.”

“do what, luke? seriously, what the fuck do you want? you can’t say sorry, you can’t make it better. and i sure fucking hope you’re not here to gloat. i don’t even care what you have to say. i don’t even care, luke. so just go away,” mike exclaimed, the anger leaching out as he went through his speech. though he’d rehearsed what he would say to luke if he ever saw him again a million times, when he was in a million different moods, now that it was happening it, his mind was blank and all he had left was the raw emotion he was he was feeling right at that very second.

he was still in shock. there was a part of him that couldn’t compute any of it. maybe if he just blinked a few times, he’d wake up. the larger part of him was just angry. sometime in the past few months, he’d cried out all the pain. he was all just a big ball of hate and until he was faced with luke in front of him, he hadn’t even realised it.

“i just… i’m sorry. i am so, so sorry. i shouldn’t’ve come. cal said—” luke apologised.

“—cal said? cal? i should’ve known. whatever he’s said, don’t believe him. i don’t need your pity. i don’t need anything from you. i’m fine,” michael said. even as he said the words, he was aware of the irony of it all, in that he didn’t look at all fine. he looked like a wreck. he was a wreck.

“mikey…,” the younger man said, trailing off.

“no. you know what? no. just no. have a nice life, luke,” michael said.

luke met his eyes for the first time since he’d shown up at the door. his blue eyes pleaded.

mike’s heart was hardened to it. he didn’t care. he shut the door. michael leaned back against the door, waiting. he heard no a single sound from the other side. luke apparently had the sense not to knock or beg. he just left.

michael surveyed the flat with fresh eyes. now that the confrontation was over, he could see it all with fresh eyes. it felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. in a way, he’d been waiting, suspended in time, until luke showed up. he’d expected it. (well, on his worst days, he’d wished for it, longed for it, without thinking that it truly could happen.) now that it was over, he could move on. after seeing luke, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was over it. he was over him. mike could finally trust himself that he wasn’t holding on to an ideal image of luke. he couldn’t hold on to the past any longer. he didn’t want to.

now, with clear eyes, mike took in the filth of his flat. he saw the empty pizza boxes and beer cans. he saw the clothing that he’d left strewn for god only knew how long. the dirty dishes, the rank socks and garbage.

he went to the stereo system in the living room and turned on angry, ‘90s green day as loud as it could go. then he opened the windows to let in fresh air and began to clean.

he started with chucking all the obvious trash into garbage bags. he collected dishes and left them to soak in the kitchen sink. dirty clothes were collected all into a pile to be laundered and he did his best to scrub a mysterious brownish stain out of the hall carpet. the more organized his home became, the more human he felt.

it was time to start moving on.

*

the next day, michael printed out a bunch of copies of his resume and handed them in at as many coffee shops and grocery stores as he could. unsurprisingly, after months of spending a lot of money and not earning anything, his bank account had seen better days. he went grocery shopping, bought a box of hair dye and did his laundry.

calum kept calling him and texting him things like ‘please talk to me’ and ‘i was just trying to help’ but michael didn’t answer. he didn’t want to talk to him. not yet, anyway.

after dinner, mike called his mother.

“michael?” karen answered. “are you alright? how are you doing?”

he knew that his mother had been worrying about him. he’d been avoiding talking to her for way too long.

“i’m good,” he replied, staring out of the window of his living room, fiddling with the cuff of his sweater. it was just starting to become dark outside, the glow of the surrounding lights beginning to appear. when he had first started renting the apartment with luke, the fact that it was in the middle of the city had been considered a drawback. the plan was that it was only short term, that they’d move out to somewhere with less people as soon as possible. michael was now thinking that he liked the people and the lights. he thought maybe he liked living in the city. “i’m trying to find a job.”

“it’s so good to hear from you. you sound so much better, michael. you sound so good,” she said. he could hear the emotion in her voice through the phone.

“i feel a lot better. don’t worry about me. i actually cleaned yesterday,” he said.

“that’s wonderful. i was so worried. you haven’t been yourself, since, you know, since luke,” karen said, careful edging around the sensitive subject.

“i know. i’m sorry. i think i’m getting used to it.” he didn’t see the point in telling her that he’d shown up at his door and that that was really the only reason he wasn’t still lounging in his sweatpants, playing hour after hour of shooting games.

“that’s good to hear. i know it’s been hard for you.”

“but, as i said, things are getting better i think,” michael said, unwilling to even think about the last few months of his life and how ‘hard’ it had been for him. he just wanted to move forward.

“keep me up to date on the job search,” his mother said. “call me, okay? keep in touch.”

“i will, mom, i promise.”

they chatted for a few more minutes, michael relaxing more and more as the conversation went on. he couldn’t remember the last time he’d called his mother and he made a promise to himself that he really would keep in touch. he couldn’t let himself fall apart again.

after he hung up from talking to his mother, he phoned ashton. yet another relationship that he’d been neglecting ever since his world flipped upside down.

“mikey!” the drummer exclaimed in lieu of greeting.

“hey, ash. how are you? how’s school?” michael asked. after their band had broken up, ash was the only one to go back to school and he was now working as a pre-school teacher. michael could picture him perfectly with a roomful of rambunctious three year olds and thought that he was probably amazing at his job.

“i’m great. school is great. we’ve actually started doing singalongs and you should hear their little high pitched voices. they’re so funny sometimes,” ash said. “how are you?”

“i’m doing good.” when michael had been in the depths of his sadness, everyone’s constant need to ask him how he was doing had seemed annoying but now he welcomed the opportunity to say that he was doing well. “guess what?”

“what?”

“luke stopped by yesterday.”

“what?” he asked incredulously. “are you serious? what’d he want?”

“i don’t know.” thinking back over the events of the day before, he let out a chuckle at his own behaviour. “i kind of yelled at him and shut the door in his face.”

“you what?”

“i told him i didn’t want to hear what he had to say and then i shut the door in his face. it was like, once i saw him, i knew that i really didn’t want him back. i was just angry. like, he treated me like shit. why would i want that back?” the normalcy of talking to his friend felt amazing. he’d missed Ash. he’d missed being himself and talking and feeling okay.

“exactly!” ashton exclaimed. “look, this might sound awful and, i mean, luke is my friend but what he did was not okay. i haven’t really been talking to him that much, you know. it just was not cool. and I’m happy for you.”

“thanks,” michael said, glad that at least one of his best friends was on his side. at the same time, he felt guilty that they were talking about luke behind his back. he felt guilty that ashton was kind of pissed off at the blond too (even though he wasn’t responsible for that and was just a sign that it really hadn’t been mike’s fault.) ash and luke had, at one point been very close and mike somehow felt responsible for the friendship not being as strong as it had been. “calum apparently was talking to him about me.”

“yeah I know. cal still thinks you guys can make it work. i don’t think he wants things to change.”

michael snorted. “it’s too late for that.”

ashton sighed. “oh well. some things just aren’t meant to be. i’m glad you’re finally seeing that.”

“uh huh.”

“to celebrate, we should go out and get really, really drunk,” ashton suggested.

michael laughed. “why not?”

“i’ll text you the details.”

“alright, it’s a date.”


End file.
